


Freedom By Another Name

by Mints (HeadedMints)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Abuse, Gen, MT!Prompto, Way too many people, aranea is.. a mom and a sister all at once, biggs and wedge are married, general mistreatment of a decent human being, maybe?? - Freeform, mints rewrites the entire plot of xv, probably promptis??, prompto cries a lot, thats just how it is on this bitch of an earth, vague gladnis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 20:04:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14480181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeadedMints/pseuds/Mints
Summary: The Lion had his courage, his strength - and the Scarecrow's brain held wisdom far beyond his years. The lost child wore his magic well, and  the three were soon ready to take back their home. ENTER: TIN MAN; tear your heart out your chest - for there is never any wizard to fix what's always been broken.





	1. The Right to Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> first try at writing a really long thing and hoo boy. i set myself up to never fucking finish it. anyway, here's an mt prompto au. prompto's designation comes from a post by dizzymoogle on tumblr, so its not nh - 01987. i hope you enjoy, and please give feedback if you feel it is needed!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -jascha hoffman

If a unit is to follow every necessary procedure, and not differ from any other such unit, and accept treatment and get the appropriate marks in each test that is administered, and not experiment in any way deviating from his primary purpose or designation, and not become ill and not reject commands, and conduct himself in a known, theorized, and pre - written pattern, and never disturb the flow of the group as a whole, then that unit may disappear and never be heard of, never disciplined from the mass as a whole.

Yet if a unit is to stray from regular procedure, or deviate from the known, theorized, and pre written pattern, in such a way that he be noticed by his superiors and, if need be, suffer such compulsory consequences, then that unit shall be known by every other unit and become a pariah even amongst his own, and every instructor and doctor and scientist and guard, down to even the lowest defective unit lurking in the lowest, dirtiest floors of the facility; such all will know of his illogical failure.

This lesson has been the only law of life unit N - 1P01357 has ever known. Since the day he was commissioned, his instructors have worked and beat it into him daily; it's written in the lines on his back and the marks on his chest. The human doctors in the medical wing have reprogrammed him countless times, practiced hands making irreversible mistakes each time he squirmed. Likely not their first, nor their last.

The yellow paper on the outside of his pod completely destroys all their work, all the time spent on him in hopes that he may properly serve the imperial empire. It destroys it all in one fell swoop.

The treatments haven't been progressing properly; he knows. His genetic structure has been volatile since his last mutation, and his immune system has begun to deny the latest injections. He cannot hold down the black fluid and becomes more sick overall, his white blood cells seeming to attack without discretion or reason. The edges of his implants, from his limbs to his ports, are raw red and infected. Their specific unit had been made to be durable, unstoppable, never faltering in the face of any and all opposition, and here he is - sickly and small, too weak to function properly among any others of his class or unit. N - 1P01357 has failed to perform with every weapon put before him but a knife and a small handful of firearms and lesser machinery.

And he knows what the yellow paper means.

The yellow paper was on the pod next to him just a while ago, in fact. It gets passed around through the units, marking certain ones and sparing certain others. It is placed upon the glass to tell the human units which pod holds a compromised unit, and the units are taken from their pods to be deactivated or dismantled. Some of their bodies are left hanging in the training yard for target practice. He'd fired at them plenty of times before, not even considering it. Yet now, the yellow paper is calling for him.

The pod is suddenly far too small - crushingly so - and the press of the usual tubes inside becomes a relentless pressure. The cord along his spine burns inside his skin. Everything is too close and takes up so much space, and his pod is too small and he's not small enough. The yellow plasters itself to the inside of his eyes, still there when he closes them. No matter what he does, he can't escape the yellow paper.

Then, he realizes there is something he can do to escape.

His hands shake as he runs them along what inside of the pod he can reach, searching for a tool.  N - 1P01357 knows of the new implements in his wrists - the blades meant to be used in direct confrontation at close ranges, meant to injure soft human tissues and tear out a human unit's fleshy, exposed eyes. For a moment he does ponder their usefulness, but he's never quite gotten them to open properly and can't risk it now. He can't open any of the other implements either, the ones that deliver horrible electric shocks, or the ones that open wildly in every direction. His body catches as he shifts to turn around, a muted pinch in the side of his neck.

He feels for the tube for his latest treatment, finding it lodged in the area of distress. It only takes a sharp tug to free it from its designated port; the needle is about the size of a small screwdriver, one the units at the medical bay use to fasten the metal framework inside his implants. N - 1P01357 practically slams his free hand onto the door, running his fingers along it, trying to find a seam, or a gap, or an anything, aimlessly fumbling through the dark.

There are hinges on the inside, sloppily welded against the inner wall. He grips the needle tighter, forcing it against the bottom of the pin. It clatters against the floor with a sharp, metal rumble as he moves to the second, quickly freeing one side of the door from the pod's cold innards. Light streams through the slit, bright and burning. N - 1P01357 hastily disconnects himself from the various tubes crammed in the pod with him, tearing them out of his ports and dripping rich black onto the steel surrounding him. His ports itch as they are exposed to the cold air.

The gap would be too small for any other unit of his class; except he's defective, not the right size, and easily manages to slip through the space. Such a mutation is meant to be fatal - only now does it work on his favor.

The catwalk is empty, his bare, rubber soled feet slapping loud against the metal. The other units are still stored away, awaiting the call of the first human unit to come along in the morning, turning knobs and pressing switches. Without the insides of the pod holding him, the outside air stirs the dull ache of his ports and implants back to life with a renewed vigor.

N - 1P01357 walks. He's seen an open area down one of the hallways past the medical bay; and he certainly knows where the medical bay is, having been taken for reprogramming and repairs so many times. The problem is the human watch rotation, and he's sure that they have to be everywhere - he has always seen them every time he goes this way. His legs stutter a moment, locking and leaving both his feet at the floor again for what seems ages. Yet his stride soon renews, staying ever constant but now shaking, weakened.

He makes it to the medical bay hallway without incident, still quaking, armorless and exposed out in the cold, open tile floor. N - 1P01357 takes one look around the place, and, finding it empty, sprints out to the outside.

Two walls close off the sides, and a small fence cordones the area off from the cliff ahead. The world is dark, lit up by pinprick lights hanging down from the deep black ceiling on the outside, suspended by nothing. A human unit leans against the black railing, whispy grey smoke twisting out of her mouth. She's out of uniform, the typical imperial cuirass discarded for a strange black, fabric chestpiece. Languidly, more so than any other unit he's seen before, she turns to rest her arms against the rails. N - 1P01357 freezes - exactly as his training advises him not to.

Her eyes go wide at the sight of him, and the smoke stops flowing as he darts towards her. Her hand goes to her waist compartment, and the alarm goes off behind him. The blaring is an empty white static, hollow and swelling inside the cold gaps in his ears.

"You're not supposed to be outside your pod," He moves closer, white compacting beneath his weight. She backs up a step and realizes she can't go any further. "Return to it immediately, or -"

N - 1P01357 doesn't quite realize what he's doing until his wrist implement is out - successfully armed and mounted - and the blade is in her throat. He pulls away from her, wills the weapon back into his arm, horrified. Her body limply falls back to the railing, tumbling off the cliff and down to the ground below.

The alarm blares further, and voices quickly join it, loud, distant static swollen in his ears. The ground is cold, but there's a warm patch where the unit once was. The heat soaks slowly into the rubber soles of his feet, diseasing the pale ground with red splotches. He turns to see other units filing out of the only door back into the facility, weapons brandished. His own unit looms imposingly tall behind them, armored and battle ready, broad and strong, and impossibly gigantic in every posssible way.

Faced with the choice, N - 1P01357 hurls himself over the fence legs first, following the rocks into the abyss as the other units angrily cry out behind him.


	2. Chemical (Blue)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -demo taped

The ground is soft at first, but becomes unyieldingly hard after a while. The white is everywhere, covering the world in a blank nothing - too much nothing, with nothing in it.

N - 1P01357 lays there in the white for a spell, letting it cover him as it falls from the dark. His lower limb replacements are damaged from the fall, but functional nonetheless. Slowly, he stands, frantically searching; he knows for a fact that he won't make it long without any weapons besides his wrist implements. The human unit's body lies a crumpled heap not too far away, surrounded by a great, uneven splatter of red.

N - 1P01357 rummages through her compartments until he finds what he needs - a knife is strapped to her leg, a pistol at her side. He can't quite understand what the characters engraved as Quicksilver on the side mean, but it doesn't matter. It's probably the unit's designation, or her weapon's designation. He piles some of the nearby white over her red puddle, hiding her corpse beneath a thick layer of it.

He stumbles out away from the cliff; his unit can survive such a fall with no damage if they land properly - unlike him - and will likely soon follow his lead. Out in the white, he sees a brown lump trampling a grey silhouette, more pale figures quickly surrounding it. N - 1P01357 runs out towards it, and a wrinkled hoary face takes form on the brown shape, a long snout dangling down between two short tusks. The silhouettes quickly become gnarled beasts, all sharp edges and teeth, their tongues lolling out of their horn rimmed mouths as they charge towards the longnose.

N - 1P01357 clicks off the safety and fires a round into one of the monsters, making the remaining survivors turn from their original target. He hurriedly puts it back in its stolen holster, reaching for the knife. One of the creatures lunges, and one of his wrist implements shoots out as he goes to cover his face. A strong, fang cluttered jaw lands hard on his arm, before the thing staggers back, dazed and dripping heavy from its snout. Seeing it as a lost cause, the rest of the pack scurries off into the woods, leaving the dead behind.

The longnose remains, gently snuffling as N - 1P01357 slowly comes closer. He goes to pet its side, hand hesitantly hovering above its skin, afraid of causing more damage. The thing is more than twice his size, but still surprisingly defenseless. He finally brings himself to touch it after what feels like ages, fingers brushing against its hide.

It's so soft.

The dirty brown skin sinks ever so slightly under the pressure of his hand, and it's the softest thing he's ever felt. Ruddy colored curls cover every part of the longnose but its feet and face, fur warm despite the cold air. N - 1P01357 leans into the animal, the hairs tickling the infected edges of his ports and itching at the seams of his implants. It doesn't move, letting him soak in the unbelievable plush feel of its tangles, his face pressed firmly against it.

The longnose starts plodding away, limping on a crimson coated leg, and he follows. He doesn't know where it's going, only that it's going away from the facility. N - 1P01357 doesn't want to stop feeling the soft brush of its fur, and it needs protection - he could do both if they stayed together. A hand at its side, he stumbles alongside it, gently rubbing the hair near its head. It lets out a snort, graciously slowing to his pace.

The longnose eventually leads him to a cave, tucked away near a large swathe of ice. The white continues to fall, everything beyond him and the soft fur under his hand blurred past recognition. The cave provides shelter from the storm, a gentle blue glow ebbing from the stone floor. He curls up next to the creature as it settles near the light. He nestles himself in the crook of its front and hind legs, gun clenched tightly in one hand, the other resting on the coarse, shaggy hide of the beast.

Later, N - 1P01357 goes outside before the longnose wakes, sitting in the white. The outside ceiling has become full of colors with time - how much, he's not sure - and the small lights are gone. The gargantuan roof stretches over the wide patch of ice, dappled orange and purple and yellow and white, streaks of red lining the changes between them. It's wonderful, beyond wonderful, he thinks - and he can't stop himself from shaking. 

He sits there, staring, until a giant light is lit far away, suspended by nothing. An unseen cable hoists it up higher towards the outside roof, bright and round, hanging on its own. N - 1P01357 feels its heat, intense warmth soaking into his bones. His eyes boil in it, and things blur and smudge in his sight. The sultry air is too much for his body, bare skin burning, smoking a deep, black ash grey. He hurriedly scrambles away to the cave, hands furiously rubbing at his face, trying to clean his eyes of the light, of the smoke.

The longnose is awake, now, trotting over to the opening of the cavern just as he enters it. N - 1P0357 goes to hold it, to keep it from going out into the burning light, but his hands can do nothing but pull at its soft hair as it walks away. He reaches out, feels his implants getting hot, and then pulls back in. The blue light from the stones does not hurt him, he finds - he does feel more sluggish around it, however. With nowhere he can go at the moment, N - 1P01357 closes his eyes to wait.

He's not sure how long it's been when he's startled by an unfamiliar clicking at the mouth of the grotto. His eyes shoot open, his core hammering hard in his chest. They've found him, he's going to be reprogrammed and corrected, or dismantled and hung in the yard to be filled with bullets and knives and all sorts of torturous things, they -

" - cave only had a few garula. What're you doing out here all alone, kid?" A human unit's voice rings out, sharp and crisp. Her body blocks some of the paled outside light from streaming in, cutting a firm shadow into the stone. "And... naked?"

Something sparks in the back of his mind: she must not be able to see him well enough from here. She must not know what he is. Their units were designed to look like humans so they would be easier to operate around, and he's smaller than the average of his unit; even the runts of the group were at least a few good feet taller than any of the human units. That would make him harder to recognize, along with the shadows from the jagged rock ceiling of his shelter.

Her uniform is black, red around her neck and brown at the edges. Grey hair frames her face on either side, messily pulled up behind her head. She starts walking deeper into the cave, and he pulls himself back. Each and every step she takes brings her closer to him, no matter how fast his implants can drag him across the ground.

Eventually, she gets close enough. Eventually, she can see all his ports and the swollen lines where his implants end and he begins. N - 1P01357 watches as her eyes go wide, exactly like the female officer's eyes from the night he escaped, surprise frozen in her features as the white blanketed her corpse.

"You're just a kid," She whispers. Her mouth moves as if to say something more, but only air comes out. He curls in on himself, legs against his chest, back flat against the cool, stone wall.

"Are you," His lips crack with the words, hoarse and quiet. The sound devolves into a coughing fit, lasting a while before he can use his voice again. "Are you going to take me back?"

"What?" Her voice is back, though, loud once more. She takes another step, and he pulls on his legs a little tighter. "No, look, you need help. Do you need anything - anything at all?"

"I -" He wants to tell her yes, yes he does, but the marks near his spinal implants scream no, no - his units are not allowed to request anything from the human units. But his units are not allowed to leave their pods, either.  
His units are not allowed to steal weapons from human units. His units are not allowed to touch longnose fur. His units are not allowed to speak. His units are not allowed to run away and hide in caves.

"Alright, look," She sighs. Apparently he's been thinking too long; a correction must be in order. His units are not allowed to withhold any form of response. "Just - just stay here. I'll be right back with - y'know, something."

N - 1P01357 stays there, pressed against the wall as she click - clacks away. He has orders to stay there. The bright glow fades from the outside after a while, the light being lowered from the roof. The colors return slowly, yellow and red and rich purple painting the mouth of the cave.

N - 1P01357, despite his orders, crawls outside.  
The white is still cold. It's no longer falling, making its home on the ground. The colors are vibrant from over the ice, his skin gently smoking in the faint light, heat waning. It's still as beautiful as it was earlier, a splash of hues smattering across the usually blue ceiling. He's never seen any material change colors so often, or a light that turns on and off and hangs off of nothing. Pinks and teals spread up through the lights, misty and smoky patterns. The white shifts beneath his quivering weight.

"What're you doing?"

N - 1P01357 starts dragging himself back to the stones - he's disobeyed an order, and now she's going to return him to give him the corrections and reprogramming he deserves; or to have him deactivated, his defects too great to repair. This is why he was deemed defective in the first place - disobeying orders.

"I'm - I wanted," His voice fails him, quietly dying away: his units are not allowed to want anything, either. "The white -"

"You wanted to sit in the snow?" She shifts a bundle under her arm, going to sit next to him. N - 1P01357 nods as she settles on the ground.

He has a word for the white now.

"That's... alright. You can do that, it's fine." She follows his gaze over the ice, to the colors. Her eyes are a dull green, like the full face masks they make his units wear with their uniforms. Apparently, she sees him staring up. "You like the sky, too?"

"Yes." He has a word for the ceiling now, too. "I - I like... yes. I like it, all of the colors."

She sits there with him until the colors disappear, replaced by the new, dark blue sky. Another light rises up - smaller than the other one - but his skin doesn't burn in it, like the blue from the rocks. Even smaller lights accompany it, tiny and far away. Wind blows some of the snow off the ice and onto the ground.  
The human unit stands, and he's afraid he's done something wrong again.

"C'mon, shortcake. I've got some stuff for you," She says, going back to the cave. "Don't want it to get wet."

N - 1P01357 doesn't understand that, either. All he's done is disobey orders, and this unit has offered him things and let him sit outside when she told him to stay still. But he follows her in like he's told, his damaged limb implants protesting ever so slightly.

When he reaches the blue light back in the cavern, she's set out several pieces of a uniform on the stones. She already has her own - what is this other set of clothing for?

"You can take them." She stirs him out of thought, his head shooting up to face her. "They're for you. The jacket might be too big - actually, everything's probably a little big. Just put 'em on and see."

N - 1P01357 takes the pants first, being sure to avoid the switch at his hip when he pulls the grey waistband up. It's meant to detach his lower limb replacements from his torso for mandatory cleaning and in the rare case of sudden emergencies, but without the proper tools it's impossible for him to reattach them correctly. It would be best if they stayed attached in the first place.

The chestpiece comes next, leaving awkward lumps over his ports. It's only yellow cloth, sleeves reaching down to just above his wrists. The heat it brings is a gentle, comfortable warmth, unlike the outside light, and the inside of it is soft against his skin. The fabric leaves out of place wrinkles over the seams of his implants and replacements.

The jacket she mentioned remedies the strange shapes underneath his clothes, covering them with a thick, puffy black. A little yellow creature is patterned on the left of the chest, its head jagged, face decorated with a pointed, orange snout. Uneven, spiked letters read W - I - Z underneath it. N - 1P01357 spends what feels like ages staring at the pecuilar beast.

"You like it? Lucian made," He's not sure what Lucian made means, but nods anyway. He goes back to examining the thing's awkward yellow hair. "Some of the stuff actually managed to make it overseas and through customs. There're boots over there for you, too."

The soles of his implants stick to the bottoms of the shoes, but they help to scare off the chill of the ground. It takes N - 1P01357 a moment to realize he's shaking, panting and gasping - his units are supposed to be completely silent, not even their breathing heard - and he goes to cover his face as he drops to the stones. His leg implants take the weight of his body with ease as his knees hit the floor.

"What's wrong?" The human unit is at his back in a second, hand at his spinal implant. The jacket is pressed flat against it and around it, pronouncing its awkward shape.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry - I just, just - I," He can't stop the wet from falling, clawing at his eyes with his hands, his entire body quivering. He can barely hear his own voice at the quietest it's been so far, rough against his throat. "I like... these, I really, really like this. I can't - you -"

"Hey, hey, it's alright." Her hand moves to the right of his spine, rubbing tight circles on the edge of his limb implant. "Don't apologize. You haven't done anything wrong."

You haven't done anything wrong.

The knowledge sends him into another strangled, bawling fit, his face hot, his body tired. It feels so good to have someone denounce all his defects, to forget about all the rules he's broken and the mistakes he's made - to have someone give him a new uniform, to rub his back. It feels as though his chest is going to burst, tightening, choking him. The corners of his lips turn up, but the heat keeps falling. He stops trying to rub it away.

After a while, there's nothing left in him; but the little upturn in his mouth remains.

The human unit sighs, crossing her legs on the cave floor. The blue light flickers, casting shadows along the uneven, rocky walls. Half of her face is eaten away by the dark.

"Well, now that we're acquainted," She huffs, leaning back on her hands. "Name's Aranea. What's yours?"

"N - one - P - zero - one -" He coughs, choking on his own tongue as he sits up. Aranea's eyes harden as she shifts her weight forward. "N - one - P - zero - one, uh, three five seven, production model zero five eight, no, zero five nine -"

"Stop, stop - just," She puts up an open hand and begins to stand up, and the numbers catch in his throat. Maybe she's finally going to correct him, bring him back to the facility to be deactivated. He runs through the last few minutes, trying to find what he did wrong this time. "Shiva's tits, kid."

"I'm sorry. I didn't," It's an automatic response; maybe he can beg for her not to take him back. There's something tight in his neck, blocking his voice - and it's already so quiet. "Please, I'm sorry, I thought, you said -"

She walks over to where his pistol is discarded, examining the weapon and clicking the safety on before tossing it into his corner of the cave.  
"Let's call you Prompto, 'kay?" Aranea sways most her weight to one leg, hand at her waist. She doesn't yell, or grab him. She doesn't force him to go anywhere.  
"Like the gun. Sounds normal enough, at least."

"Yes," N - 1P01357 accepts his new designation without hesitating. For a human unit to have given him so much, even for all his mistakes; besides, a new designation is nothing compared to the corrections he's gone through before. He still bears the scars over his core from his last reprogramming session, and each and every single one of the sessions before that.

"So, Prompto," She lets the word fall out of her mouth, testing it. Something tugs the corners of her mouth up, just barely. Aranea starts digging through her bundle. "You hungry? I think I have something in all this shit..."

"I don't," He takes a deep breath, then a deeper one. His throat starts to open up again, his core's activity slowing to the point where he can no longer hear it humming. "Know, I don't think... no?"

"You don't..." She stops rummaging and props herself up on the bag, green eyes trained on him. Her tone goes flat. "Food? Nutrition, sustenance, the like?"

And then he understands - all the human units know how to administer nutrients to his units. He pulls at the yellow fabric of the chestpiece, leaning back so the port in his stomach in visible, a small metal ring just above his waist rimming the edge of his lower limb implants. The skin around it is a swollen red, infected. It serves as a reminder that he's defective; that he shouldn't be here, outside.

Aranea stares from her things, looking on. N - 1P01357 grips the cloth tighter to keep his hands from shaking as she comes closer. Her finger draws along the outside of it, warm against the cold steel, and he shivers at the touch. She sits back on her legs, knees at the ground and her hands on her thighs.

"Alright, we're getting nowhere like this. I'm," She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes and brushing pale silver locks away from her face as she sighs out. He lets the cloth fall. "I'll warm up some soup. You - you just drink that. Think you can handle that?"

He nods. Water has to be administered by the mouth, but only because the Empire can't find a more efficient way to spread it throughout a unit's body. They'd tested a few of their theories on him once or twice, and all of them ended with him worse off than he was before.  
So. He's not sure what soup is, but he knows how to drink.

She goes to the center of the light with her bag, pulling out several sticks and laying them along the glowing stones. In the next moment, they're burning, the fire sharing the cave with the faint blue shimmer. Two steel canisters are set beside it, the flames licking their shining, silver bodies. N - 1P01357 watches in silence, waiting. Aranea doesn't say anything throughout the process.

Aranea delivers one of the canisters into his waiting hands, gentle heat spreading down to the edges of his implants. Inside, a murky green - brown fluid sits, steaming from its prison. Strange pieces float about in it. 

N - 1P0357 stares at it, watching it hiss for a spell. Then he looks to Aranea, studying her in silence as she spoons some of the muddy, hot liquid into her mouth.  
"Is it too hot?" She looks over to him, locking eyes. Her tool goes into the canister, sticking out by the handle. "You can wait if you have to."

"No it's, I'm - your hair," He manages. His units are not allowed to have hair. One of his hands wanders to the back of his neck, feeling his bare head, fingers running over his spinal implant. "I - it's nice. I like it."

"You would," She returns to her soup, mouth turned up at the edges as she stirs around inside her canister. N - 1P01357 doesn't quite understand. "You don't have any."

"Yes. I'll," He holds the canister up to his mouth, lets the liquid drip down his throat. A warm puddle settles in his stomach, gnawing at the rest of his torso. It feels good, better than any nutrients he's ever had administered. It's greasy in his mouth as he takes another sip. "The soup."

Eventually he can't even swallow it anymore. N - 1P01357 sets his half empty can on the stones, Aranea having done the same a while before. She stores them in her bag, then lays back on the bundle to help her keep her head off the stone floor. N - 1P01357 curls up by the dying fire, watching the wood crack as embers fleck onto the ground. His jacket rustles as he shifts onto his side, knees held by his arms.

As the last of the flames die away, his eyes close against the gentle, blue and orange glow.


	3. Amsterdam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -imagine dragons

"You're trying to get away?" Aranea asks him the next time the sky is blue. "And they... you came from the facility over by the cliffs, yeah?"

"Yes." Her questions are easy. He can answer them perfectly fine, the shelter of the cave keeping him from burning.

"And you can't get hit by the sun," She adds in a whisper. N - 1P01357 doesn't quite understand, searching for a response in his mind. She must see his hesitation. "The light, outside."

"Yes." He can name the light in the sky now. He can name a lot of new things. "Are you - are they going to take me back?"

"No - you're not going back. Look," She puts a hand to her face, the other going out from her body. Her elbow rests on her thigh, holding her weight. "I can get you as far as Caem, but I'm can't stay with you. I'm on the clock right now; you just happened to show up on my route. But I don't think my... employer would mind a detour. He doesn't have to know about it, anyway."

"I - yes." He doesn't know how to respond, but a response seems greatly necessary. N - 1P01357 doesn't know what Caem is, or what she means by on the clock, but he knows she's suggesting getting away. Getting away means being safe, means not going back. He doesn't want to go back; it seems Aranea doesn't either. She stands. "Yes."

"Let's get moving. Keep the hood up," She says as she pulls him to his feet, flipping the back flap of the jacket over his head. "And your head down, and we'll make it just fine."

"Yes." He doesn't say much other than yes. It's the right response, apparently, and she sets off, boots clicking against the stones. His gun is tucked under his jacket, strapped tight along his chest just above his nutrient port. One would be unable to see it from the outside.

He follows her by her feet, hands hidden deep in his pockets. The snow is still, the wind taking a break. It settles over everything, falling slowly like sparkling little lights. N - 1P01357 likes the walking - he doesn't have to say anything, nothing he can really do wrong. Just walking, moving his legs.

It takes them a long time before the snow no longer covers the ground, and an even longer time to run across more structures - this, he only knows, by how to ground shifts under his feet as they carry on in their march.

He can see the boots of human units cluttering the platform, his eyes cast to the stone.

"Watch your step." She leads him up a small set of metal stairs, into rows and rows of seats. He watches the stripe down the middle of the floor pass by as they walk, green with red edges.

She sets him down in one of the seats, and he keeps his head facing the floor. The booths are plush and yielding, his back sinking into them. Something rumbles to life beneath them, hissing and growling as it works.

"You can put your head up. No one's in this car." He lifts his eyes to the building. Out the window, the world rolls by, smudged and blurry, like the view from his pod, like the light from the sun. Towering mountains take up a chunk of the sky, stretching to the heavens. Snow clouds the air. He's never seen something so pretty, no matter how fast it whips by them. "First time on a train, huh?"

"It's... nice." N - 1P01357 breathes. He looks to the corner of the glass.

A face stares back. It has the same jacket as him, pulled up over its head. Where Aranea's eyes are white, the face's are red, completely black pupils following his. He puts a hand to the window, and it mirrors his move. Pale skinned and wide eyed, it put its other hand against his, both their palms pressed to the glass. The scenery rolls by behind its transparent head.

"Never seen yourself before, Shortcake?" N - 1P01357 looks to her, confused, then looks back to the window. The face follows. "That's what you look like."

The red eyes go wide for a second time, finally realizing - that's him.

Then he goes back to the mountains, the sky rolling thick with swollen clouds behind the rocky spires. Aranea sighs. The corners of his lips curl in, and she sighs again, watching him as he takes in the snowy terrain. It's prettier than when the sun gets lit and put out, prettier than the colors in the sky.

The sky is dark by the time Aranea leads him off the train. N - 1P01357 keeps his head down again, bustling by human units and staring at the white stone path. All of a sudden, Aranea stops, and he collides with her back.

"Stay right here. I'll come back in a bit," She drops his hand, and he stays there, still looking down. N - 1P01357 curls his hands over each other, bringing them close to his chest. He doesn't want to touch any of the units passing by, doesn't want to hurt anyone milling past.

Aranea returns, peeling apart his hands and setting a pair of glasses in them. The lenses are a dark orange - brown, and he puts them on without any direct orders to do so.

"Now you can put your head up." He does. The structures are surrounded by water from every direction, floating on vast sea. N - 1P01357 looks over the railing beside him to see the waves crashing against the stones. "Not every day you get to see Altissia at night, eh? You wanna take a look around?"

"I..." He hesitates, looking out on the water. There is so much out on the water, so much water to hold it. Everything outside his pod is huge, and he wants to know what it all is. "Yes."

The city has so much. There's a huge fountain up at the top, an animal with a long horn at the center of its head. He and Aranea spend so many minutes trying to land folded white papers in its gaping steel mouth - more Aranea keeps trying: N - 1P01357 lands every single one he throws out.

There's a woman sitting on the stairs who draws a picture of them standing together. Aranea laughs at it, but he carefully folds it and tucks it into his jacket, his hands shaking from laughing with her. The sound is foreign in his throat, raspy and weak.

She stops him at some unit's cart, helping him learn how exactly you properly use an ice cream cone. It's freezing and sweet, unlike the soup. N - 1P01357 can't believe how many different forms there are of the same nutrient substance. His is white and pink - vanilla and ulwaat, Aranea tells him, though he's not sure what that is - while hers is brown and blue. He just stares at the colors cradled in his hands before Aranea has to remind him to eat it. It melts quickly, dripping onto his fingers. He sticks them into his mouth to clean them, copying Aranea as she does the same with her own. It's tangy, twinged with the strange, new taste of the edges of his implant.

There are boats everywhere, and they take one over the city to the main square, the edge of the paths lined with shops, people calling out their wares all over the town. N - 1P01357 wanders the area, everything breathtaking, leaving him in awe. He's not even sure what they're selling, yet he can't help but look. Aranea practically has to drag him away from a display of what the woman calls out as a black chocobo feather - he's not sure what a chocobo is either, but the thing is so pretty, prettier than the city itself, looking so soft and gentle and light in the glass.

Their time goes by quickly, and Aranea ends up taking him to where the larger boats are stored. She somehow gets them through customs and onto a ship, the driver only tipping his hat as she leads him on. Another man sits beside him, face tucked inside a tight hood.

"Where to, Lady A?" The driver's voice is strange, sounding like nothing he's heard ever before.  
"Caem. And go slow, Biggs," She leans back against the edge. N - 1P01357 stays near the middle, afraid of falling in. Would it affect his implants if he did? "Kid's never been on a boat before."

"Right then." The driver turns back, looking at N - 1P01357. His mouth gently pushes his cheeks into his eyes, his chin speckled with hair. "We ready to shove off?"

N - 1P01357 isn't sure what that means. He turns to Aranea, who gives him a short nod before looking up to the driver.

"Yes." He says, cautiously setting himself on one of the grey seats as the black vessel lurches out to sea.


	4. The Pretender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -foo fighters

Only three weeks out on the road and Noctis has effectively become a bastard orphan heir to nothing but debris, turned hunter living off pieces of animal and daemon corpses, positively homeless and presumed dead by the entire country. Not quite the beginning he'd expected for his wedding days - but it could be worse, much worse.

The bounty they have out is simple: a suspicious figure's been spotted around the Wennath riverhead, and the local hunters are paying good gil for someone to track it down, and an even bigger sum for killing it. Most assume a new breed of daemon crawled its way out of hell and into the wild, what with the thing only appearing at night.

"Any idea what we're going after?" He puts his hands at the back of Ignis' seat, the advisor busy at the wheel. The day is still young, leaving them with plenty of time to think - unless something gets in the way. "Or... any idea what it is?"

"The descriptions are all rather lacking." He hums, eyes still locked on the road. A herd of mesmenir runs through the street a ways away, five or six of them congregating in the grass. "They do all share one thing in common, however; the beast is fairly humanoid, if not appearing completely human. But I'm afraid no previous records match the presented details."

"Must be something pretty big if the hunters're making a fuss," Gladio unfolds his arm along the back of the seats, stretching. "Isn't just some small fry we're dealing with here."

"They'd have already taken care of it if it were." Ignis sighs, glasses migrating further down his nose as he dips his head. A quick push has them back to their rightful place. "Surely you're still up to the task, Noct?"

"Hell yeah. I want a hotel room for once," Noctis falls back to the seat, arms behind his head. The sun beams down, smiling down on their disheveled band of varying levels of nobility. "No more sleeping on rocks after we bag this one."

"Don't think I'm lettin' you off that easy. There'll still be plenty of camping to do after this," All Noctis receives for his trouble is a slap to the back of the head. It doesn't hurt - his own hand moving to his skull is an automatic response. He idly bats away the bigger man's hand. "Can't just put all our money into a nice bed for His Highness, can we?"

"Yeah, yeah."

The sun sets itself low in the afternoon sky by the time the Wennath's sole parking spot comes into view. Noctis pulls out his phone, checking the bounty details. Another few hours until the thing usually appears, and its haunting grounds are just past Mynbrum Haven, visible from the rocks. The river nearby is relatively safe for fishing, despite the occasional sahagin.

Within the next two hours, a sizable pile of assorted fish clusters the dock, some writhing about and falling off the wood and back into the water. He just finishes reeling in his fifth argus - fought him all the way - by the time Ignis approaches, the sun dipping behind the tall trees beyond the river's bank.

"Seafood on the menu tonight." Noctis hums as he tosses his catch to the advisor, watching him struggle to hold the slippery thing. He sighs, looking down at the many trout breeds scattered across the dock, finally finished with their resistance. "Salmon any good?"

"If you're for a tender, flakier meat, then yes," Ignis seems conflicted over whether to keep his shirt clean or keep the fish from the water, and begrudgingly chooses the latter. It flops helplessly against his chest, nearly eluding his grasp before being clutched tighter. "But you'll be eating trout for the next week at least, if not longer. Perhaps it would be best to save the salmon for a more... notable occasion?"

"Nah, it's cool." He sends his rod back to the armiger, bending down to retrieve an armful of the fruits of his labors. Noctis' smile only spreads as he sees Ignis' questioning gaze. "I'll go for fish over toast any day, no matter what kind it is."

The next hour is spent setting up camp and storing his rather slippery prizes, planning out dinners and preparing to make tonight's after they capture the bounty.

The hour after that is spent searching the woods for their game, only to find ornery reptiles and killer bees. Noctis is left suffering from another horrible headache, and Gladio catches more than one hit headed towards him. It subsides a little once they've cleared out the beasts, the pain turning dull.

"I can handle it." He interrupts Ignis before the man even has a chance to speak his worry - it's written all over his face, traced in the distressed lines carved in his forehead. "Don't worry, Specs. I can take care of myself."

"Then we'd best check the road," He sighs after a long moment of consideration. His glasses slide over his fingers as he rubs the bridge of his nose. "I doubt our target's left the area."

"Yeah, or we'll have wasted a night over nothing." Gladio huffs, sword over his shoulders. The man's barely broken a sweat. "Still got Talcott's waterfall story to check."

The road yields nothing - not at first. They're just about to return to the haven when an iron giant forms out of the ground with a metal groan; like a rusty door tearing a pathway from hell, letting loose the lowest of monsters. Already tired and wracked with yet another headache, Noctis is ill prepared to take it on.

"Daemons are usually loath to appear in this area. Perhaps," Ignis muses as he slices through the first of the goblins that are crawling from the woodwork. "Something's drawn them here?"

"Nowhere to run. We'll just have to take 'em head on." Gladio rushes to the giant's feet, his sword barely digging into its ankles as it reels back with a blood curdling roar.

Noctis hangs back, pistol in hand, firing a few rounds off into its chest. Each shot rumbles in his skull, every noise spiking the pain further into his eyes. He banishes the gun as the burning reaches its peak, falling to his knees as the beast draws closer. His body screams, trying to lift him from the ground, but nothing can stop the searing heat in his skull.

A shot echoes out: it's not his, not Gladio's or Ignis'.  
He lifts his face to find a newcomer firing off into the iron giant's head. The bullets do their job, and do it well - the thing falls in the next few minutes, the smaller daemons scattering or falling to dust. Their savior makes a move to follow the beasts, trying to flee, yet he lingers. It gives Noct just barely enough time to recover.

"Hey, wait!" The stranger flinches at his voice, freezing. Slowly, he turns, face shrouded by a black hood and the dark of night. Two strange, bright red eyes stare out from the dark, piercing the shadows with a soft, crimson glow. Noctis hurries down the street, pain disappearing as fast as it came. "Thanks. We owe you one."

"Are you," Blonde hair peeks out from the underneath of his hood, messily sticking up with grime and dirt. He swallows, a jagged scar carving through the bridge of his nose, sickly, pale grayish skin marred by scattered darker marks. "Are you going to take me back? Or - you're with, with her?"

"What?" The prince takes a closer look, seeing the oily, dried splotches scattered across his once daffodil shirt. A black chocobo post jacket settles awkwardly on his body, clumping at his shoulders. His coat is in surprisingly good condition, despite his visible and implied wounds. "Do you need help? A potion, remedy, anything?"

"I... yes, these things," He coughs. His red eyes shift to Ignis, and to Gladio behind him. "Rough, spiky, really big things - one got me, in - in the stomach. I still... it's wet."

"Alright, here. You can drink it if you want," He summons and holds out the shining hi - potion bottle, two thin, shaking hands taking it slowly, hesitating. Red eyes watch him, brimming with anxiety. "It'll absorb on skin contact, too. Whatever you wanna do."

"Yes," The boy slowly, clumsily works it open, bringing it to his mouth. The relief is visible on his face, almost palpable in the air - some of the tension fades from his eyes, his back straightening. The bottle fades back into the armiger, and his hands fold over themselves in front of him. The green light fizzles around him as he shifts his weight, magic flowing and healing as it should. "I - thank you."

"Don't worry about it." Noct himself feels as relieved as him, if not more. Ignis and Gladio finally make it over, standing tall behind him. The stranger crumples a little, wincing when he moves to shake his hand "You can call me Noct. These two are," He points to each of them, respectively, "Gladio, and Ignis."

"My name is - is Prompto." Prompto's hand lands in his, fingers twitching. His skin is cold, and Noct watches him melt a little into the heat of his palm. The red gaze never leaves his face, searching, stopping on his own eyes. "I - around here, it's where, where I - ah."

Then it hits him; something clicks, and the realization is sudden and full in its intensity - Prompto is the supposed daemon they're looking for.

Noctis has no idea how long Prompto's been out here. He has no idea why Prompto's out here, or who he is, or why he's so startled, so jumpy, but he wants to help.  
He turns back to Ignis a moment - it seems he's realized too - and slowly, the man nods.

"Do you - you wanna get outta here?" Prompto's eyes go wide, black pupils huge in the reds of his eyes. There's something so warm about the way his emotions take center stage, painfully clear in the way his face moves. It's foreign but endearing, the way the scar twitches when he makes a face, and Noctis has to remind himself of Luna, of why they're even out here, not dead in the ruins of Insomnia. "We've got camp set up just down there, by the river. You could stay the night with us."

"It is rather dangerous at night," Ignis puts a hand on Noct's shoulder, bringing himself into the conversation and Noct out of his daydreaming. "I insist. Surely there's room for another, and you'll find it safer there than out here."

"Yes. I -" Prompto manages, his gaze now shifted to Ignis, worrying. It's painful, the fear plastered in his face. "That'd be nice."

"Alright. Lemme get the stuff out," Gladio makes for the stairs, Ignis following not far behind. The two seem to engage in a fiercely serious conversation the moment they make it out of earshot, quiet yet strict and strained, turning the air awkward.

"Here, come on." Noctis takes hold of the blonde's hand, leading him along. Even though the touch is cold, it sends heat rushing through him, sparking in his chest and flowing in his face.

"Yes," Prompto mumbles. His hand shifts awkwardly in Noctis', twitching. He doesn't comment on the sweat slick along the prince's hand - either that, or he doesn't notice. Either way, it remains unmentioned as he takes him to the stairs.

It's nice.


	5. Saturday Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -vance joy

This new human unit - Noct, he has to remind himself - is unbelievably incredible. N - 1P01357 watched them fight while they were by the river. He's never seen any unit move that way; so erratically, disappearing and reappearing, shooting through the air. He draws weapons from nothing, switches them out with ease, ruthlessly cutting apart foe after foe. It sends chills down his spine to watch him tear through muscle and bone, an apex predator at the height of its prime.  
Noct is incredible.

Yet he doesn't quite understand why they invite him to their camp. Surely, they saw his eyes, the red eyes of his unit, and thought to turn him in. But Aranea had yet to deactivate him - maybe they were the same? His thoughts are muddled as Noct leads him to the blue glow, slowly climbing up the steep, jagged rocks to the platform above. 

Chairs and such are scattered around, a fire burning at the center of the stones. Noct lets go of his hand, leaving him drifting.

"Where - you," N - 1P01357 fails to speak, helplessly fumbling with words. He'd never been very good at talking. "You're going?"

"For a second, yeah." Noct stops, about to descend from the rocks. He hesitates. "Do you wanna come?"

"...Yes." He stands, dropping from the cliff with the other man. His implants sloppily absorb the impact, still gently damaged. "Where?"

"There're these - y'know what, just come on," They stay close to the haven as he leads him along. "It's easier to show you than explain it."

They stop at a cluster of bright orange rocks, fire licking their jagged stone edges. Noct holds his hand out, other arm back, and light slowly bleeds from the ground. It flows up to his arm, his skin greedily swallowing it in a steady stream. After a few seconds that seem like ages, the glow of the stones dies away, and the rays end. There are two more stones after that, blue and yellow, and their light fades the same as the ones before them. He can't help but feel sorry for the rocks, giving everything away yet recieving nothing in return. Surely they're not meant to be like his units - at least in that aspect.

"It's called elemancy," Noct elaborates as they walk back to camp. He gestures with each word, hands trying to capture their meaning further than words ever could. "I can draw the elements from those deposits and... use 'em. I'll make some spells for us tomorrow."

"Ah. It - that's really," He stutters as they pull themselves up the rocks. Ignis is at his designated post, it seems, laboring over a black and beige surface. Gladio is busy training off to the side. "That's really amazing."

"No big deal." Noct shrugs, placing himself in one of the canvas chairs around the fire. He draws a black rectangle from his jacket pocket, light spraying out. Slowly, he looks up. "You know how to play King's Knight?"

"No." N - 1P01357 isn't even sure what a king's knight is, let alone the components of its operation.

"...Do you wanna know?" 

He hesitates. "...Yes."

"Alright, here - take my phone."

Noct spends the next hour teaching him the basics of the phone game, pointing to things and calling out their names. He smiles sometimes when N - 1P01357 does something right, and even when he doesn't, Noct just laughs and shows him what to do. This method is much more effective than that of his trainers and the doctors, beating him or cutting him apart. He learns much faster this way. 

After a while at it Gladio joins them, and N - 1P01357 even manages to beat him during a round. The man seems frustrated a moment - he's afraid he's done something wrong - but they continue on within a single pulse of his core, as if nothing's happened. He looms around the haven, seeing Ignis still diligently working away. N - 1P01357 idly wonders if Ignis is always left to his post without anyone else.

"Dinner's ready," The man in question strolls over, cleaning off his hands. His gloves are gone, sleeves rolled up to his elbows - no lines of implants or blades decorate his arms. No barcode is drawn along his wrist. N - 1P01357 isn't sure what he expected, but feels let down anyway. "Whenever you are, that is."

"Yeah, you wanna eat?" Noct turns away from his rectangle, stowing it away once more. He stands, stretching. A bone pops as he cranes back his neck. His gaze moves again to him, blue eyes settling. "It's up to you, really."

"Ye - yeah," He breathes. The word is new, fresh. It has the same meaning as "yes" - at least it must, given the context - but it feels different. N - 1P01357 looks around for a response, realizes he must be overstepping his boundaries, and hurries to correct himself. "Yes."

Ignis passes around whatever "dinner" is, contained on flat discs with segments dividing each component. He's not sure what anything in front of him is, all different colors taking up the white plastic of the container. 

N - 1P01357 turns, looking for some form of guidance. Ignis and Gladio busy themselves with conversation on the opposite side of Noct. Noct himself is engrossed in his "dinner", yet another apparatus in his hand. N - 1P0357 realizes he has a tool of the same nature in his container, and hurries to get it out. He watches Noct closely, copying his movements, and carefully inserts the apparatus and the "dinner" into his mouth. He chews.

It's sweet, something over it sticking to the inside of his mouth. The sweetness fades, replaced by the solid heat of the actual piece itself, falling apart. He swallows, feeling the warmth go down his throat and past his core, settling in the pits of his body near his nutrient port. It's different from the soup somehow, so much better, so much more - he doesn't understand how or why humans have so many different ways to deliver their nutrients. N - 1P01357 makes a high pitched noise he's positive wasn't programmed into his unit, yet no one goes to correct him for it.

He repeats the process until there's no more "dinner" left in his container. N - 1P01357 sits there, loosely holding it, until Ignis comes to retrieve it.

"Thank you," He mumbles, and he watches the corners of Ignis' mouth twitch up ever so slightly.

It doesn't take long for them to have their equipment stored away, and he watches as they approach their cloth sort of pod, yellow fabric dulled with use. Though he isn't sure of the time, N - 1P01357 knows the sun will be coming soon. He knows that, even if he doesn't burn as much as he did at first, he'll still burn. Then, like any responsible human unit, they'll return him and his defective parts to the facility he came from.

"Hey, the hell're you doing?" Gladio's voice rings out behind him - and he knows they've finally decided to deactivate him. He turns slowly, frozen at the edge of the haven. Ignis puts a hand on the man's shoulder, mouth quickly making unheard words, before he turns to N - 1P01357.

"You're welcome to the tent," His glasses are gone, N - 1P01357 realizes. His sharp, green - blue eyes seem much smaller now. "I'm certain there should be room, give a little rearranging."

N - 1P01357 is frozen a beat longer, before he realizes again - this is an invitation to their cloth hut, a call to come inside. He slowly ambles his way over, implants protesting as he bends down and crawls inside. Ignis and Gladio are against each other on one side of the tent, Noct curled up opposite, and a gap about the size of a human unit sits between them.

He carefully sets himself in the space. The floor of the tent is surprisingly soft, sinking to the rock under his weight. He can feel Noct, feel his warmth, as N - 1P01357 lays flat on his back, arms cautiously tucked against his sides. He knows the night will end soon, and the moon will go down and the sun will come up. He hasn't been in the sun since his first year in Caem, but he knows he'll burn. 

Somehow, the thought does nothing to drive him away. N - 1P01357 feels content just to rest beside these humans, to be around other units - even if they aren't any of his own.


End file.
